


Rumination

by gutturalmess



Series: Deleted Scenes [11]
Category: CodotVerse, DC - Fandom, DCU, Rogues Podcast
Genre: CodotVerse DCAU - Freeform, Devil in Disguise (a Harley Quinn tag), Gen, One Rogue Leads Another (Gotham Rogues tag), Tread Lightly (a Pamela Isley tag)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 10:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23849602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutturalmess/pseuds/gutturalmess
Summary: In her mind, she was back in her greenhouse, naked and alone: she stretched herself up to be en pointe, one arm lovingly caressing the tallest frond, fingers outstretched.What she does, she does out of love.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Humanity
Series: Deleted Scenes [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1044510
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Rumination

**Author's Note:**

> Pamela Isley is a wonderful, complex character, and it is long overdue that I gave her some life in CodotVerse. A little light, a little love, a little life... just what a growing force of nature needs.
> 
> After being tossed into solitary confinement ([ _TRS Casefile: The Layman and the Stamen_](https://theriddlerspeaks.tumblr.com/post/166558150464/casefile-the-layman-and-the-stamen-transcript)), Pamela finds herself with too much time in which to think about the past. Takes place during and after [_The Most Popular Girls in School_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20532713), and is followed by [_Reliably Unpredictable_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15214604).

That goddamn piece of shit Harkness. What was it that had made her so angry? She cursed her own weakness, which had hurt him none and left her in this box of punishment without any light. It had to be the loud reappearance of what she thought she had left behind: another deluded, ignorant moron who only wanted to fuck her. What was it about her that attracted a certain type of brash fool with a death wish? To make herself feel better she conjured up visions of killing him: fanciful ways, like turning him to stone and then smashing the statue to pieces, or drawing and quartering him with vines… and then more practical ways, like burying him in a shallow grave to make food for the mushrooms, or feeding him to her plants and then drinking the essence they excreted just for her. Already adrift without the heartbeat of her greenhouse, she raked her hair in front of her face to hide within it and shook her head. 

“Loud means noticed,” she muttered, shoulders hunched and arms crossed. “Even if they can’t find him, they’ll know it was me. Then they’ll kill my babies and leave me in here.” 

As she slid off the wall and curled into a ball on the floor, she sighed. 

“Fucking hell.” 

Why did everything always have to come back to men? Since she had an unknown amount of time to wrestle with her thoughts in the dark, she might as well go back to the beginning.

The men in her old life found her irresistible and placed her at the top of her most desirable lists by virtue of her genetically drawn attributes. This was not simply a figure of speech: in her 11th school year, the boys drew up a list of the girls in their grade, rating their body parts with marks out of ten. Pamela Isley, emerging from puberty to stand at 5’11” in bare feet with long legs that drew the eye upward to see a head of naturally red hair, creamy skin, green eyes, perky backside and soft breasts earned a perfect 10 in all categories; she was seen only for the sum of her parts. The boys continually reminded her that she should be a model, like it was some kind of a compliment. _Model what?_ She would ask, genuinely mystified; thinking she was joking, they would laugh and inch closer, fingers itching to touch. 

As for the girls, they looked at her with distrust. Despite her unconcealed disdain for boys, they would still flock around her. She would try to tell the girls that what boys thought of you didn’t matter, they weren’t worth your time: all they would do was scowl and spit out what became a refrain: _easy for **you** to say._ Spiteful and short-sighted, the girls excluded her and spread rumours about her chastity, leaving her isolated and alone in the vast landscape of school. But if they had hoped to dissuade the boys by slapping Pamela with the label of slut, it had the opposite effect: the boys still tracked her like hounds on a vixen. To her increasing annoyance, the byproduct of so many rejections earned her the accusation of _what are ya, a lesbo?_

It was none of anyone’s business and she would never explain herself, but the assertion wasn’t far off the mark, classless though it was. Pamela had little perception of beauty in anything but nature; try as she might, she had yet to find another person attractive and was drawn to personalities, instead. While she hadn’t fully decided who she was, thus far her only tender, private feelings had been for girls. But as she looked around at the glowering, hateful faces of what had once been her friends, she wasn’t so sure.

It all had to come to a head eventually. Far from being shattered by complete social exclusion, Pamela grew more self-reliant and found she was happier alone. Growing up on a farm, she was used to having free reign of the family garden, where she was most content in the company of the fronds. As they were in relative seclusion, she would strip down to her underwear in the garden, as she felt closer to nature without clothing in the way; the underwear she kept as a concession to her mother, who was forever impressing on her the concept of shame. _Wear a longer top to keep your kidneys covered, Pammy, don’t get cold. Are you sure that’s what you wanna wear?_

Too self-involved to notice anything happening around her, she hardly noticed that her stepfather had grown more attentive and her mother more irascible; she remained in her own little world, safe and secluded from the shouting behind closed doors. In the end, her mother confronted her with a series of accusations that left her too stunned to reply: what was it she was supposed to have done? Despite her growing detachment from people, she still loved her mother, and went along with her wishes: she was sent away to live with relatives in St. Helens. Always slow to notice social nuance, Pamela hadn’t realised until later that it was she who was blamed for the strife in her mother’s marriage. That she had somehow led the man on, simply by existing - he had flattered himself into thinking that what she did for herself, the way she looked, the way she lived her life, was all some elaborate ploy to attract him. With a heart spiked by affronted revulsion and all respect for her mother gone, she never returned to what had once been her home. The only sorrow was that she would not be able to tend the garden anymore. 

Pamela had every reason to hate men for their ignorance, their self-delusion, their treatment of women as property - and she absolutely did. But she hated women, too: for their vindictiveness, their pettiness, and their obsession with being noticed and desired by men.

Dragging her mind from the mire of the past to the more recent present, Pamela pictured the scene again. Edward had treated her with the same respectful air she had come to expect from him, along with a certain wary watchfulness: this pleased her. When she had lost control of her temper, he had stepped a good couple of metres away from Harkness as if suspecting the other were about to be torn to shreds. Whether he didn’t want gore to land in his hair or simply to watch the proceedings, it proved to Pamela that his intelligence was not merely a hollow boast. A prideful man, but at least not a stupid one. 

In comparison, that fool Harkness was blind ignorance itself. Pamela had initially been happy, after the accident - she had hoped that her healing green smears of skin would dissuade men from approaching her, trying to claim her. It came partially true as it made her far more intimidating, but there still existed a certain type of over-confident male always happy to try his luck, seeming to revel in his recklessness. In the face of her wrath, Harkness had kept that stupid grin on his face. Despite knowing that nature was at its most beautiful when it was destructive and thus so too must she be, what bothered her was that someone managed to get under her skin when she thought she had gotten past such petty grievances. 

It had to be that they shared a country of origin - it had to be. So much time had passed that she had forgotten them, but then along comes this one, just like the others but writ larger, somehow. Like scraping open a scab, he had clumsily poked at her right where the nerves were raw. 

“You know he’s not worth your time,” she murmured, retreating tighter into a ball, like a tick. “A dog chasing cars.”

Worth her time… Harley brought her into activities with her and the pussycat whenever they were all free enough to do it, when she thought she was getting too insular. Pamela was astute enough to know that this was designed to keep her grounded, keep her something close to normal, but she let them do it and usually went along with however matters developed. They were her only real friends, after all - for all their fuck-ups over the years, they still cared about each other. What they got up to was more harmful than harmless, always at another’s expense, generally men. No one died, but a good many egos went down in flames, and she was not yet so misanthropic as to turn down a guaranteed good time. It was all done out of compassion: Harley was trying to help, bless her cotton socks, but her enthusiasm could get on Pamela’s nerves and her own dismissiveness got frustrating. With a bone-deep weariness she knew that Harley would never give up on her cause: she still hadn’t given up on Crane, and that whittled stick of a man was barely held together with sticky tape and Blu Tack. The thought of her being somehow on a similar level as that was insulting. 

Where Harley attempted to coax her into sympathising with the living, the psychiatric staff sought only to pry open what they perceived to be her cocoon. Over the years their efforts had become more desperate, less aggressive, more wheedling… but the pursuit remained, an example of ragged tenacity that she felt only pity for. Couldn’t they _see?_

The crux of their frustration was that she would simply say nothing, her reticence sharpened to a point. There was only a limited time in the day for therapy; all inmates were on a strict schedule, especially a high-risk subject like her. Therapy was acknowledged as the only weapon they possessed, but a meaningful breakthrough had so far proved elusive. Tones became pleading, angry, manipulative - but she reacted to none, as still and unmoveable as any oak. There was nothing she needed to prove, her sanity least of all. Bad enough she had to sit here in these ridiculous scrubs and restraints; clothing was such an appallingly backward convention. Pamela would close her eyes and wait out the session as if going into hibernation; she had all the time in the world, and humans were so fleeting. 

In her mind, she was back in her greenhouse, naked and alone: she stretched herself up to be _en pointe,_ one arm lovingly caressing the tallest frond, fingers outstretched. The lamps above her tilted head ignited the violent red in her hair, her sporadic patches of green skin sparkling like dewed grass. From outside the glass, she was lit up gold like an angel in splashes of warpaint. The only sound was the slow rustling of leaves, despite no discernible presence of wind. Pamela’s human eye burned with love; the other was inscrutable. 

Back in reality, she smiled: a rare, beautiful sight that unsettled and rarely soothed.

A hot topic of her therapy sessions was Harvey Dent. Why she had attacked him in particular, why she scarred his face like she did. Bringing the man’s colossal vanity down, stripping away the conceit to reveal what he tried so hard to hide - those were secondary feelings, felt after the fact like a justification, like a soundbite. The truth of that moment was, Harvey Dent represented everything she despised: greed, capitalism, wanton destruction… all wrapped up in a thousand-dollar suit. Destroying his face was to spit in the one giant eye of every man like him, and she never felt an ounce of regret for what she had done. 

With the wisdom of experience, she thought that if she could do it again, she would have killed him. Make an example of the man, prove that blights like him could be erased at any second, at her whim, as nature was wont to do. Dent had previously been brought up to provoke a reaction in her, hoping to raise her famous rage from its slumber and find a way in. Those who had tried that tactic were disappointed every time. Unknown to them, she had moved on from what she believed to be a relatively minor anger; she was younger, then. Pamela felt only pity and irritation toward Dent now - he was just another tiny human fooling himself into believing he was in any way important.

Dr. Leland was still talking about Dent - trying to understand why it was him in particular instead of the random act of violence that it clearly was. 

_Must I always be defined by interactions with **men**? _

Finally weary of this line of questioning, she opened her eyes. The pupil of her left eye, dark green, blew open in the light; the remainder of the eye, disconcertingly missing its iris, was as green as the splashes on her skin. “I evolve. So too must you. Move on.” Leland, stunned by these eight words being the only ones addressed to her in the last six months, took some hurried notes, keen to break the intense stare. Pamela closed her eyes and exhaled, breaking the atmosphere. To her credit, Leland has yet to bring up Dent again.

While wounds were in mind… after the accident a hypothesis had suddenly struck her; she took a knife and slashed a deep line through part of a still-white thigh to find out. After the requisite leak of blood like lava bubbling up, the wound puckered itself closed. The new skin grew back green, proving her right. When her body healed itself, she got gradually greener: more plant than human. With every passing day, every passing injury, she was losing her humanity. Though she kept this knowledge to herself, she could not think upon it as anything frightening, or as something that needed to be stopped, because the thought of it evoked the strongest emotion she was able to feel that wasn’t fury: anticipation. 

Solitary confinement was the time to reflect on everything you had done, to throw a magnifying glass on your worst choices in life and suffer them over and over again with the desperation of knowing that you can never change what has already gone before. After this particular stint Pamela could still say she felt no guilt on her own part: she wished guilt upon those who had wronged her, and for everyone else to get out of her way. There was no regret, only vindication.  
Hearing approaching footsteps, Pamela lifted herself up to lean against the wall and pushed her curtain of hair off her face; the door opened with a clang and a cool rush of air. Pamela quickly adjusted to the change of light, the fresher air replenishing her reserves. 

“You calm now, Isley?” 

“Oh yes,” she said with a small nod. “Perfectly.” 

“We’ll see. Come on, then.” 

Taking up her usual soft step with feet turned out, Pamela allowed herself to be escorted back to her cell without a peep. On the way back, they passed Harley’s cell; Pamela turned her head to catch her eye as the guards got her own cell ready. Seeing her, Harley ran up to the glass, practically bouncing with glee. 

“We got ‘im,” she said. “Digger.” 

Pamela furrowed her eyebrows, puzzled. “We?” 

“Me ‘n’ Eddie. Remember him? Sexy bitch wit’ the nasty streak a mile across,” she grinned. 

“That’s only your description, but it rings a bell,” Pamela said, fighting down a smile. 

“Digger’s pukin’ his guts up as we speak,” she broke into giggles, “‘n’ I reckon he’s gonna be there a while.”

“What did you do?” 

“Silly boy ate some bad mushrooms.” 

Pamela had to laugh. “Poisoned?” 

“Askin’ for it,” she shrugged, smiling. 

“Damn right he was,” Pamela said, raising a hand to rest against the glass; Harley pressed her own hand against the other side. “Thank you.” 

Harley tilted her head with a knowing smile. 

“Ya got people wit’ ya, Red. Ya not alone.” 

“I know,” she said, nodding. “I know.”

It was a small act of petty vengeance, Pamela thought, but one done with her in mind. That definitely counted for something. As she reclined on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, she decided that that would pacify her desire for revenge, where Harkness was concerned. 

Until he fucked up again, of course. Then it was open season - and she would have to try very, very hard not to kill him.


End file.
